Jason Liggayu calls my attention to something important:

I was wondering what was your opinion on the “Cell Phone Consumer Empowerment Act of 2007“? Do you think it will have a good or bad effect on consumers and the GSM / cell phone market industry if this were to pass into law. This bill was introduced by Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). Personally, I think this is great for consumers who use GSM networks like AT&T or T-Mobile.

Let’s take a look at some of this Act’s summary points:

• Maps are to be detailed enough to identify whether or not a consumer shall be able to receive wireless service at the consumer’s home.
• The FCC shall submit a report to Congress that studies the practice of handset locking in the United States and the effect of handset locking on consumer behavior and competition.
• Publication of the terms of a wireless plan shall include information on: contract terms; charges; minutes; information on taxes and surcharges; wireless E-911 service; and other information that the FCC considers appropriate.
• A contract for wireless service may be canceled upon the request of a subscriber for any reason up to 30 days after entering into the contract.

I certainly think this is a step in the right direction. You should be able to walk into any store, buy any given wireless device, then hop onto any network with it at any time. Wireless carriers fear this type of freedom, as do various device manufacturers – because the days of sucking are quickly coming to a close.

The Wireless Industry Sucks

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… fool me, can’t get fooled again:

With wider national coverage than either company could have had on its own, Sprint Nextel Corp. and Clearwire Corp. say they can achieve on their joint WiMax network some of what Google Inc. and others want to see in the prized 700MHz band.

The companies announced Thursday they will link their respective WiMax wireless broadband networks to give subscribers a seamless roaming experience across territories that eventually will cover 300 million U.S. residents. The network will deliver between 2M bps (bits per second) and 4M bps downstream and about half that speed upstream, they said.

Some of what Google and others want? SOME? No, it’s all or none – you’re either for open access, or you’re not. This is a bad, bad, bad idea – Clearwire has already proven to the world that it doesn’t want to treat the customer with respect. Even with two vendors working in conjunction with one another, our choices are still limited.

Let me put it to you another way: I can’t get Verizon FIOS in my area because it’s serviced by Qwest. WTF!? Do we really want the wireless Internet spectrum to run into the same problem? “No, I’m sorry – you can’t get online here. You don’t have a ClearSprint account. You’ll have to sign up for a rate that we set for you.”

They Want to Pwn the Wireless Internet